Debt Culture in Shakespeare’s Time

Early modern English probate documents are oral histories of debt. Wills show people of all stations struggling to make good deaths by clearing their accounts and repaying their creditors. Testators explain their debt priorities, lay out directions for how to meet debts and acknowledge when they leave their heirs irresolvable debt problems. As inventories show, wills were notional documents; when the goods that people owned were insufficient to their debts, bequests were nullified. Some heirs declined executorships accordingly. This essay includes two case studies: the Greville family, where a £35,000 estate was dissipated by debt, and the Shakespeare family, where debt may help explain why Shakespeare abandoned his father’s trade, why he had a private wedding and why none of his books and manuscripts survive.